George Will Gives More Bad Advice

Fresh from his prediction of a Romney landslide, George Will has emerged with more wisdom for the GOP. Will admits that he was wrong about Romney. But he urges Republicans to look at the bright side: “If there’s a winner tonight, it’s the Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio because all eyes are now going to be turned to him as a man who might have a way to broaden the demographic appeal of this party.”

Will is probably correct that Romney’s defeat is good news for Rubio career, at least in the short term. The problem is that the premature elevation of Rubio as frontrunner for 2016 is precisely the wrong strategy for building a Republican majority.

Rubio is young and charismatic. But he’s a vocal supporter of the Bush-era policies that voters have twice rejected, especially on foreign policy. One lesson of this election is that Americans do not want another war. I doubt their appetite for confrontation will increase over the next four years.

Rubio is also, as everyone knows, of Cuban origin. Republicans are deluding themselves, however, if they think that will impress the Mexican-American or Mexican-born citizens who make up the bulk of the “Hispanic” vote. The Republican party does have to find ways to appeal to non-white voters. But tokenism based on a misunderstanding of ethnic and cultural divisions is unlikely to get the job done.

Republicans have a history of seeking a charismatic personality to lead them to victory. In recent years, this has allowed them to avoid the unpleasant task of facing the reality of the national electorate and the consequences of their policies. Romney’s defeat has given Republicans an opportunity to reconsider their most politically toxic commitments: a foreign policy of endless war, and tax policies that most directly benefit the rich. It would be a shame to squander that opportunity by searching for a perfect messenger for the same old message.

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15 Responses to George Will Gives More Bad Advice

Calling Rubio charismatic seems to be a case of the soft bigotry of low expectations. The man is one of the flattest orators in the Republican Party. Whereas Obama would be a notable speaker in his party regardless of race, Rubio seems to be considered charismatic solely on account of his olive skin. The Senator is no more charismatic than Latino communities are vibrant.

As a Hispanic conservative, I find the simplistic approach to american politics to be an insult to voters (i.e. Democratic argument of women ONLY caring about contraceptive and abortion or Hispanics ONLY caring about a “hispanic” as a candidate to motivate them to vote). The GOP needs to take the time to rethink the platform, particularly as it relates to the hawkish foreign policy and the platitudes about lower taxes as the magical solution to the current economic environment in the country. A true fiscal conservative proposal, a move to a less interventionist foreign policy (which at this point can actually differentiate them from the Democrats), and a plan to strategically create incentive to bring manufacturing back to America could be a great start…I am afraid the GOP has lost its ability to move away from those policy decisions that are driving Americans away from them.

I was about to write the same thing. The GOP will wander in the wilderness for a long time because of their tin ear on this issue (among other things). As long as the GOP needs to appeal to its base with dog whistles on racial and ethnic issues, they can nominate entire slates of minorities to no effect. Minorities can hear those dog whistles, too. And they’re smart enough to see through tokenism. They’re not going to vote for policies they dislike forwarded by a party they rightly feel doesn’t like them simply because the face emitting the message is brown.

Romney’s defeat has given Republicans an opportunity to reconsider their most politically toxic commitments: a foreign policy of endless war, and tax policies that most directly benefit the rich. It would be a shame to squander that opportunity by searching for a perfect messenger for the same old message.

Squander it shall. The GOP consists of true believers, and so it thinks its problem is one of marketing The Truth.

“Republicans have a history of seeking a charismatic personality to lead them to victory. ”

I believe they have a history of coming up with a charismatic front man for their business as usual machine. Which, at this point, is the rejected cadre from the Bush II administration who still do not understand that they were rejected.

The problem is that for the GOP establishment, a bellicose foreign policy (and lavish expenditures on the M-I complex) and tax policies that most directly benefit the rich, are the raison d’etre of politics.

This is why social conservatives’ causes have long been ignored, other than as political cudgels, and why a twisted, corrupt version of the Gospels, in which Mammon is worshiped alongside of Christ, is preached in many churches across the land.

The problem for religious conservatives, of course, is they have nowhere else to go. The Democrats want none of, and are opposed to, the theocratic and xenophobic tendencies of the religious right; and demographics, as they say, is destiny–religious conservatives (particularly white ones) are a shrinking slice of the electoral pie–a Tea Party divorced from the GOP establishment would be a permanent minority party. Of course, the same argument applies to the GOP establishment, who needs actual voters to win elections–hence their co-option of religious conservatives.

“Rubio is also, as everyone knows, of Cuban origin. Republicans are deluding themselves, however, if they think that will impress the Mexican-American or Mexican-born citizens who make up the bulk of the “Hispanic” vote.”

Among other things, immigration issues are rather different with Cubans. If a Cuban makes it to American soil, they’re golden. That doesn’t apply to arrivals from any other Latin American country.

To sum it all up yesterday wasn’t a victory in any sense of the word. It was instead merely an escape. A thankful avoidance of seemingly clear worse troubles than we already have, doing nothing to change the trajectory that already exists keeping us troubled enough and heading towards plenty more in the future.

Nice going, GOP, might as well start thinking about how to squander the next opportunity. Jeb Bush in ’16!

The simple truth is that Hispanics like governmental programs which they feel benefit them, and the low-tax, less-government approach which the GOP favors (at least rhetorically) has less appeal to them. This isn’t some sort of “false consciousness” on the part of Hispanics, and efforts to pretend so by the GOP will fail and ultimately backfire.

Hispanics aren’t stupid, they like getting things from Uncle Sam which, by and large, they don’t pay for, since they tend to be in Romney’s infamous “47 percent”.

Hispanics are “natural conservatives” per Rove – is there anyone more discredited now, btw? – but so what, so are blacks (church-going, down on crime, etc) and they vote about 98% Democratic.

Bottom line: “The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants mean that a Republican party that purports to stand for small government and free markets faces an uncertain future. ”

So the GOP has to decide between two choices if it wants to survive as a national party:
1, Get more whites to vote GOP (Romney got 58-59%).
2. Get more Hispanics to vote GOP.

Doing 2., or at least seeming to try, requires inclusive language, party fiesta events, more brown faces at the convention – easy stuff. Doing 1. would mean fewer handouts for plutocrats and Wall Street (ie people just like Mitt R.) and more concrete programs to benefit working class whites.

We all know which option the GOP will choose. Except that, per Heather McD, it won’t work, as Hispanics have perfectly valid reasons to go with the Democrats.

And J Schindler is why Latinos like me will never vote Republican. I don’t vote democratic because I want free stuff, I vote democratic because the Republican Party is full of racist, nativist, misogynist, xenophobes, and homophobes. The last four years, Republicans have tried to make this election about real America and real Americans when what they really mean is white America and white Americans and we Latinos are sick of it. Nominating a Cubano like Cruz or Rubio won’t make one bit of difference. If Democrats are receiving 90+ of the black vote, 70+ of the Hispanic vote, 60+ of the youth vote, and 55+ of the female vote then it’s game over for the Republicans nationally.